


dwell on the wreckage as it smolders in the rain

by r1ker



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Other, luke is the very best uncle i would write him no other way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 12:05:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5707099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r1ker/pseuds/r1ker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ben is luke's confidante from the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dwell on the wreckage as it smolders in the rain

**Author's Note:**

> i'm all about sappy uncle and nephew pieces
> 
> i have three nephews myself and i think the bond between a nephew and their aunt or uncle is really cool
> 
> so
> 
> enjoy
> 
> title's from kenny chesney's i'm alive, a very fitting song for luke post-return

Ben is a holy terror but surprising comfort to Luke, as he gets older.

 

When Luke finds himself sleeping at Leia and Han’s more often than not, he sleeps on the sofa in their den. His sister objected and objected to it, constantly telling him about the guest room they practically had made for him since they both knew he was going to be around more often, but Luke declined each time.

 

He always told her that it would be better if he was in a space where he could get up and pace should he be brought out of sleep by a dream. That happened a lot, he found, walking around the length of the Falcon still half-asleep but alert enough to keep replaying the nightmare that woke him up in the first place. One night he’s doing his rounds around the corridors of the freighter, possessing that brand of tenseness after seeing again the eyes of his dying father, when he walks past Ben’s nursery.

 

Inside the little boy is quietly chattering to himself, and when Luke sticks his nose where the door has only been pulled to, his nephew stands up in his crib. Ben makes a happy noise when his eyes get sight of his uncle, hands grasping in the air to beckon him closer. Luke obliges the littlest person he knows and walks into the nursery, closing the door behind him in case Ben gets loud, a scenario that could easily wake up his lightly resting parents.

 

“My love, it’s too early for this,” Luke groans as he hefts Ben out of the crib and onto his hip. Ben makes another noise, disagreeing this time, and wraps his arms clumsily around Luke’s neck. Now the boy settles in with a grip that’s still strong as Luke takes his place in the rocking chair by the window.

 

It’s cold on the planet they’re on now, so much so that Luke nabs a blanket from the foot of Ben’s crib to toss over the baby’s legs. The rocking rhythm he takes up sitting in the chair, back and forth guided by gentle pushes of his feet, threatens to lull him to sleep instead of the person it was designed to soothe. Ben mumbles something as he looks up at his uncle. Still content, not at all dissatisfied with the attention he receives when Luke looks down at him, takes the baby’s small hand in his first four fingers.

 

“You’re lucky,” is what Luke comments. There’s no doubt Ben’s one of the most fortunate children born into this galaxy in a long time – not many have the stability of a family unit, not just two parents, but an entire support system made up of all of their acquaintances. Many children are without one or the other, mother, father, parent or otherwise, but Ben has both. Not only does he have both, that’s a virtue some have but one always seems to be emotionally absent for reasons passing understanding, but both are all there. They are involved, loving, caring, and Luke loves every aspect of this. Loves it because he never knew it.

 

“You’re lucky about a lot of things. You can sleep in a crib that’s not a bureau drawer like I had to. There’s no work for you to start on in the morning with an uncle you never thought would like you from one day to the next. Your clothes aren’t old oat sacks your aunt had to make because she had no idea she was coming into a baby so soon. When you were born you weren’t whisked away to anywhere that wasn’t your mother’s arms. I don’t think I can say enough about that, that’s the most important thing to me that you actually got to have that connection to your mother. You have the best mother in the whole world.”

 

Luke swallows thickly and pulls Ben’s head down to his chest, where his nephew goes gratefully. He can’t imagine not having the weight of this little boy in his lap. Can’t see a world where Ben’s not there for him to talk to, to listen and offer the colorful and childish feedback he has. He tries to picture not having that little boy scramble over to the door to watch him come in from his speeder, ready for a break from training. If ever there were a world where Luke would have to exist without Ben in his life, he wouldn’t want to live in it for anything.

 

“She’s everything to me. I don’t know if you’ll have a sister yet, that’s not for me to say, but if you do get one, hold onto her. She’ll need you more than anything. Need you there to talk to, to love on if she’s feeling down or hurt about something you couldn’t help. I have your mom for that, everyday.” He breaks to clear his throat, doesn’t want to get all weepy in front of his nephew. That’s been happening a lot lately, crying jags that seem to happen for no good reason other than he finds himself dwelling on things that would be better left in the past.

 

“Being me makes you sad, and not the kind of sad you feign when you don’t get to go with Dad out about. I get sad and it’s something I can’t help. It goes away most of the time but it mostly stays with me. There’s nothing I can do about it but get myself around you three. And that helps.” He kisses the top of Ben’s head, presses his cheek to the downy softness of the boy’s hair. The night before he’d taken what hair Ben had and used the shampoo in the shower to make it stand up on end. When he brought the mirror into Ben’s line of sight to let him see himself, he thinks he should have bottled up that infectious laughter for later use.

 

Ben looks up then, presses two hands to Luke’s face. Luke nods and lets his nephew feel around, fingers touching where Hoth touched him all those months ago. There’s a tiny noise that ekes out of Ben’s mouth when he finds the largest scar, raised and only a little prominent against Luke’s cheek, and lets two fingers rest there. Luke shakes his head again and Ben pulls his hands back to himself. He kisses his palm, a clumsy press of lips right in the center, and puts his hand back on his uncle’s face in an effort to smooch the thing better.

 

“All better,” Luke says after Ben smiles at him with all three of his teeth, proud of his kind gesture. Now he lets Ben take the reins in the conversation, babbling about nothing in particular like a thirteen-month-old is wont to do. He laughs when Ben gets exceptionally excited about something he can’t quite put into the right words yet. He quiets down when his body starts to realize the late hour of the night, yawns with his cheek to Luke’s chest. “Getting sleepy on me, aren’t you?”

 

“Used to be my little night owl when you were still fresh,” Luke reminisces. Ben was – didn’t want to sleep for anything until exhaustion got the better of him somewhere in the mid-afternoon instead of the night. Luke laughed when he saw Ben passed out a few weeks ago after a long time of staying up, both arms sprawled up around his head and nearly snoring. “We’re two of a kind in that way, I reckon. I used to stay up a long time when I was little. I never seemed to want the next day to come, too afraid to see what’d it bring for me.”

 

Ben grumbles sadly and rubs his eyes with both hands, soon letting them fall shut in an effort to try and go back to sleep. Soon he does, breathing quietly resting just below Luke’s heart with an ear to the man’s sleep shirt. Luke rocks him quietly for a few minutes, making sure he’s settling into a rest he won’t be brought out of again until the time comes for morning. He takes a look around at the world they’ve forged for the youngest member of their family, one of soft toys and simplistic possessions, a wooden crib Han made himself along with a rather fitting mobile of tiny _Millennium Falcon_ figurines overhead.

 

He sees the blanket in Ben’s bed, the sight of a brightly colored comforter Luke made himself when he was convalescing from a malfunction in his cybernetic hand, forging the piece of bed linen with just a one-handed knitting tool from the market in town. Leia had come in just as he was finishing it up, hormonal tears in her eyes and both hands steepled against her mouth to mask the shock. He’d laughed at that, the way she kept crying even as the blanket was presented to her. _It’s so pretty and I love it_ , she had sobbed. It was funny then but he starts to think about it again now, how she was so surprised and happy for it.

 

In his arms Ben is slowly drifting off to sleep. He struggles to keep his eyes open, blinking sluggishly up at Luke like’s he’s going to miss something important if he goes back to bed. Luke continues rocking him, and looks down at the little boy. “Go to sleepy town, Ben.” His words are barely above a whisper, something meant for only the two of them to hear.

 

After a few minutes spent still to allow Ben to feel like he’s back in his crib and not still in Luke’s lap in the rocking chair, Luke stands, gently lowers him back down. Even in his sleep Ben reaches for the pacifier flung to a far corner of the crib and Luke pulls it to him. A small sigh and Ben’s rolled back over on his belly to sleep, face turned out to where Luke can see his chubby cheek resting against the mattress.

 

Luke goes back into the den and flops back down on the couch. The window above him still shows a black night, a sign that he could still get a few quality hours of shut-eye. Fortunately sleep doesn’t elude him any further, and he manages to knock himself out thinking of nothing but what his life is now, uncle to a little guy who seems to know him so well after only being here for over a year.


End file.
